Dear members of the crystallography community, I would like to assess the tendency/trend in our community to outsource initial crystallization screening experiments. Here, outsourcing refers to sending your protein/DNA/RNA sample to a service provider, who will set up crystallization experiments, take images of crystallization drops at various time points, make images available to you, and, if you require, send you the plate to retrieve any crystals. To do assessment, I prepared a short-answer questionnaire, which contains 10 questions and should take less than 5 minutes to complete. I especially encourage the new PIs and young researchers to complete the questionnaire. Could you please fill out the questionnaire at the following link? https://tr.surveymonkey.com/r/BVNCPVV In case you are unwilling to click links in e-mails, I also included the questions here. Please reply with answers in private to: [email protected] Thank you very much for your contribution. Mustafa Questionnaire: 1. Have you outsourced initial crystallization screening experiments in any of your projects before? Yes No 2. If you did, what format and type of experiment you used (choose all that apply)? 96 well/plate 384 well/plate 1536 well/plate Sitting Drop Hanging Drop Microbatch Other (please specify) 3. If you did, what price did you pay per 96-conditions? 4. If you did not, what prevented you from outsourcing (choose all that apply)? It is costly Shipping a sample is hard Privacy concerns I prefer to do it in my lab I do not think it is advantageous I do not have enough sample Other (please specify) 5. Would you be interested in outsourcing initial crystallization screening experiments in future? Yes No 6. If you are interested, which method would you prefer (choose all that apply)? Sitting Drop Hanging Drop Microbatch Counter Diffusion Other (please specify) 7. If you are interested, up to what price would you be willing to pay per 96-conditions? $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6 $8 $10 $12 $15 $20 $25 $30 $50 8. If you are interested, what would be your minimum-maximum throughput (# of 96-condition experiments per month)? Note: a 1536-condition experiment is 16 x 96-condition experiments? 1 - 2 2 - 4 4 - 8 8 - 12 12 - 16 16 - 32 32 - 64 32 - 128 More than 128 9. How much sample would you be willing to sacrifice per screening 96-conditions (please specify in micrometers)? 10. Would you consider international shipping of your sample for outsourcing? Do you have any other comments? End of Questions -- Mustafa Koksal Postdoctoral Fellow University of Pennsylvania Department of Chemistry Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories Office: 2090 IAST Office Phone: (215) 898-2227 Mobile Phone: (267) 319-6443 Mail Address: 231 S. 34th St, Philadelphia 19104, USA --